A federal appeals court has revived a South Carolina family's attempt to stop a public school from holding graduation ceremonies at a religious venue and including prayer in the program.

The American Humanist Association and the unnamed family of a Greenville County fifth-grader filed the lawsuit last year. They asked a judge to block Mountain View Elementary School from holding ceremonies at a chapel at a Baptist-affiliated university and allowing student-led prayers. U.S. District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. in Greenville denied the injunction.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond said Friday that Anderson erred because he provided no legal rationale for his decision. The court vacated the decision and ordered reconsideration by a different district judge.